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I’ve been so busy running back and forth from my greenhouse to watch this happening:

That I totally missed this on the other side of my yard:

We’ve had 5 consecutive days of 70º weather, I’ve had my windows open since Thursday of last week, birds are singing, seeds are sprouting, and I bought a pair of sandals today…I think it’s safe to say that Spring has finally decided to grace us with it’s presence. So far I’ve got radishes and brussels sprouts peeking out, and also some arugula that came from my first ever seed swap. We’ll be tied up this weekend, and the next as well, but my garden should be officially in the ground by April 20. I was a little worried that was going to be too late, but a coworker who is a Georgia Master Gardener told me that traditionally in Georgia gardens are started on tax day, so I’m not too far off.

And that, my friends, is how you start seeds. I’m super duper excited about this since this is my first time starting my own plants. It was very easy, and seems to be working well – I planted these on Wednesday and I already have sprouts. The boxes I’m using are by Jiffy – I got them at Home Depot for a very good price, and I would definitely recommend them. After planting my seeds I left them overnight with the lids on, per the instructions, and when I went back the next day to check on them, they were nice and steamy under the lid. I know they’re staying warm at night, and not drying out, although I expect I’ll have to add water in a day or two. I got two sizes – several with the smaller pellets like you see above, and then two that had larger pellets for my tomatoes. It took mine 30-45 minutes to absorb all the water and fluff up completely, so be prepared for a little wait if you use these, but I quite like them and will probably buy the pellet refills and continue using them.

I’m having Easter house guests this weekend, so I’ll be cooking something wonderful (I hope!) and visiting with my family. I hope all of you have a wonderful Easter, as well, and a beautiful weekend!

Check it out, dear readers: we got a (little) tractor! The closer we’ve been getting to gardening (and grass growing) season, the more we’ve been trying to figure out the best way to go about our new yard obligations. Our home is on 3 acres that is mostly yard, minus the quarter-acre garden plot that brings it’s own challenge…I don’t know about you but I’m not keen on trying to hoe a quarter-acre garden by hand. We started looking at zero turn lawn mowers, and tillers, then pull-behind tillers for a riding mower, and then we thought we might need something we could pull a broadcaster behind for seeding the lawn, and a sprayer for weed control…and you see where this is going right? We ended up looking at a compact tractor that was small enough to not tear up our lawn while we were mowing it, but strong enough to handle some future landscaping projects and our heavier garden chores. We found this one at our local SunSouth dealer, in Carrollton, and it was such a great deal that we snapped it right up and hauled it home. After much shopping around we realized that what was going to cost us the most was the implements we wanted: a tiller, mowing deck, and loader to start. The tractors themselves were very reasonably priced, but adding implements quickly got expensive. We chose this one because it was so lightly used that it was basically new, and came as a package deal with the three implements we needed the most. We’ve already put it to good use removing an unwanted pine tree, cutting the grass, and some light landscaping.

That’s our 80’s model John Deere riding mower – it was given to us by my Daddy. It wasn’t running so he gave it to Jacob to repair…it’s not very quick or agile, and the mowing deck needs to be replaced so we use it for hauling mostly. It’s been very useful when we’ve needed to haul dirt, or rock, or mulch, but sometimes we have less practical uses for it, such as when we need to haul the Bassett Hound across the yard, or something 🙂

Despite our murky, windy, rainy weather we were able to get quite a few things done this weekend. The previous tenants were very enthusiastic gardeners, but it doesn’t seem like they were overly concerned with aesthetics. You can see my little greenhouse above, and Jacob has a shop building off to the left of that photo with the aspalt pad in between. They seemed to be concerned with functionality more than looks, because the buildings were just placed there on the edge of the yard with no landscaping or anything to make them attractive. I appreciate the functionality, but I really want it to all look pretty as well…I’m thinking a low wall made of paving stones from the shop to the greenhouse (in front of that sweet gum tree) with a little flower bed in it, and then another paving stone “planter” built along the length of the greenhouse to hide the legs of that cabinet and make it look a little neater.

We’ve already done a lot to clean it up just by clearing away a lot of brush and junk from around the shop area, and I know the rest will come together in time. Hopefully spring will be upon us full force in another couple of weeks and we can get down to business in the garden.

Did I mention how much fun the tractor is? It’s pretty cool actually. I might actually volunteer to help with the lawn mowing…

I hope you all are having very happy and productive springtimes, wherever you are, and that all of your projects are going just the way you want them to. Happy Spring!